Beyond Impact: Essential Tools for Investing in the Sustainable Transition

Since the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, socially responsible and impact investing have taken center stage, but what is the next step towards critical mass?
How can fund managers go beyond measuring impact, and fully harness the power of finance to accelerate the sustainable transition?
Erik Breen, Director of Triodos Investment Management’s Socially Responsible Investment platform discusses the practical steps fund managers should take to invest for a sustainable transition.

As ETF market in the US continues to grow, where do the issuers find new niches? Find out what’s been attracting investments, where the growth is, what is new and what is coming. We will look at some themes and trends in the markets – economic, demographic, geopolitical, regulatory and technological – and see what ETF issuance can tell us about the next big thing in investing. We’ll also focus on smart beta, as well as many factors driving demand and supply, such as ETF costs, regulation, innovation and fintech.

After the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and the Bank of England's Monetary Policy meeting, this webinar will discuss the implications of monetary policy and interest rates and how this will affect developed and emerging markets.

Stewardship is one of the most direct ways in which investors can engage in long-term investment decision making. An important lesson from the global financial crisis has been that investors do need to play a stewardship role to look at how investee companies are managing the assets entrusted to them by their shareholders. Stewardship in investments means focusing capital management strategies on the long-term. Following developments in Europe and Asia in relation to stewardship codes and investment mandates some of the largest asset managers in the US have now also started requiring companies in their portfolios to adhere to “sustainable, long-term growth” strategies. However, key questions remain: What’s the most applicable investment strategy in the context of active stewardship? Are all risks such as cross-ownership being addressed and managed? Is the investee company properly accountable?

With the goal of showing investors how they can focus on stewardship activities within their active and passive investment strategies this ESG webinar will discuss:

- How to define stewardship in the context of sustainable investment and corporate decision-making;
- How investors are focussing their capital on the long term;
- How investment managers and service providers aim to establish, measure and benchmark their stewardship activities within active and passive investment strategies;
- What this means for investors, companies, and society at large.

It is being stated that a Brexit will create revolutionary distress in the market. It is being said that global financial markets will undergo tremendous, disastrous pain if a hard Brexit happens.

But, how can we move forward? What steps are companies and investors taking to stay in business?

This webinar aims to separate the signal from the noise and focus on providing our listeners with a thoughtful understanding of what the currency, fixed income, and equities markets are pricing in, and how companies and investors that operate in these markets are planning for whatever scenario may come.

Topics to be covered:

What a Hard Brexit means?

Can a 2nd referendum happen?

If we do a Hard Brexit, what are the next steps?

Where will investors feel it first, and what are the secondary and tertiary effects of a hard Brexit?

Emerging markets are in a paradox right now. They are seeing tremendous growth yet have debt denominated In a strong dollar, which threatens to halter their growth and thus ability to pay back their debts. They have more ways than ever to trade, yet are suffering from trade wards. Their economies are not yet developed, but some are on the brink of adopting more technologically advanced currencies than the developed countries.

What are good strategies to take advantage of this situation?

This panel will join leading emerging market participants to discuss:

- Which emerging markets will benefit from the potential political & economic outcomes of the next 18 months
- How to think about where opportunities lie in chaos.
- which securities are seeing the most flows and why?
- Which industries will be most affected by trade wars, a strong US dollar, and elections around the world

Growth in developed markets is slowing, which will effect Emerging Markets. But what are the causes of the slowdown, and how do they compare to the past? If the source is oil prices, what does this mean for oil-rich countries like Venezuela, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia?

If the source is Central Banking policies, either coming from the US Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank – how will relative strength or weakness in currencies affect countries that hold debt?

When headlines abound around trade, trade deficits, and trade surpluses, how can investors hedge their bets?

And as economies emerge alongside technology, labor costs become as much an economic issue as a political issue. What role does automation play in the growth story?

This panel will discuss questions facing emerging markets including:

· Are EMs better equipped to handle growth slowdown than in 2015? What do they have going for them now that they didn’t back then?
· Are we in an EM rally? If so, how long will the EM rally last?
· Central Banking policies effect on EM
· Areas to avoid vs. attractive areas?

While many organization and individuals are interested in investing in emerging markets, most do not fully understand how various segments and strategies vary in the exposure they provide. Before committing to a strategy, it’s vital that investors do their due diligence to understand what their options are, how they differ, and which will deliver the exposure they think they're getting, as well as the optimal results. In this webinar, Peter Marber will clarify what various strategies really mean in order to enable a true risk/reward analysis on the part of EM investors.

Peter Marber is the Chief Investment Officer for Emerging Markets at Aperture Investors, leading the New World Opportunities strategy. For over 30 years, Peter has professionally invested billions of dollars for many of the world’s largest companies at firms including Loomis, Sayles & Company, HSBC, and Wasserstein & Co.

Though a globally-recognized authority on emerging market economies, Peter landed on Wall Street not because of his love for financial markets, but rather due to his fascination with globalization. Peter studies how countries and their markets evolve to develop a deep understanding of emerging market dynamics. He passes along his curiosity, knowledge and passion as a professor at NYU, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Columbia, as well as through his writings on globalization, emerging markets, and higher education.

Peter earned his B.A. at Johns Hopkins, his M.I.A. from Columbia, and his Ph.D from The University of Cambridge. He is an avid composer and guitarist and lives in New York City with his family.

Emerging Markets will be the recipients of the most asset flows of any asset class by Institutional Investors, according to JPMorgan Asset Management.

In Asia, investors are trying to find opportunity not just in china, but in other Asian countries that will benefit from a growing Chinese economy.

Trade and industry developments such as TPP and the Asia Region Funds Passport promise to galvanise investment across all of APAC. In South America, a commonly over-looked area, reforms in currency, pension, education and trade present investment opportunities as well. Africa is heavily invested in by China, and Africa’s collective GDP is expanding faster than the world’s average, and it is forecast to accelerate over the next five years to become the world’s second-fastest-growing region once again.

This webinar will cover:
- What will be the impacts of a strong US dollar on markets?
- How will trade agreements, and disagreements, will shape markets in the next 6 months?
- What industries will see the most and least activity from investors?
- Which emerging markets funds are seeing inflows and outflows, and why?

Finance enables people to secure fundamental needs such as housing, education, energy and healthcare. However, globally, 1.7 billion people are without access to basic financial services, and 65 million micro, small and medium-sized business in emerging economies have unmet financing needs.

This webinar will address the following questions:
- What is Financial Inclusion?
- How does Financial Inclusion impact Emerging Markets?
- How many people are reached?
- What is Triodos IM's approach?
- What are trends and developments in this dynamic sector?

The adoption rates of smart beta among asset owners rose from 26% in 2015 to 48% in 2018 according to the FTSE Russell survey on smart beta. The growth in assets has been similarly impressive and according to Morningstar smart beta assets under management grew from USD 280bn at the end of 2012 to USD 999bn at the end of 2017. One of the key secondary effects of this significant growth is to put continued pressure on the margins of actively managed products.

The main purpose of the panel discussion will be to understand the reasons behind this runaway growth, how smart beta is developing and whether this growth is sustainable. The panelists will present their views on issues such as:
- whether smart beta is the same as factor investing
- how they decompose this broad universe
- the role of smart beta in new areas such as bond investing and even hedge fund or
- private equity investing
- how ESG can be applied to smart beta investing
- the ability to market time between ‘factors’

In 2018, many equity markets suffered setbacks which can be at least partially trace back to the US – China Trade War and how would this generational topic affect us in 2019? And how should one position the portfolio accordingly?

Join us for our upcoming BrightTalk Investment Outlook 2019 webinar, in which we will examine:

• What Remains of the US – China Trade War?
• How did the Trade War Affect China’s Economy Thus Far?
• Implication of Further Inclusion of A-shares by MSCI
• China-focused ETF Landscape in Europe

Earlier in his career, Simon worked for Credit Suisse, Mayfair Pacific Financial Group, and Fubon Bank in Hong Kong. Simon started his career at SAFE HK as an Analyst and was subsequently promoted to Portfolio Manager responsible for managing part of China’s Foreign Reserves.

This has been a highly extended global economic cycle led by the US. Its longevity has been due to a number of factors including unorthodox monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and an absence of the exuberance that typically precedes a market reversal. The panellists will debate which factors are likely to drive markets over the next 12 months. They will cover key issues such as:

* The underlying strength of the US economy and the timing, and potential causes, of recession

* Evidence of inflationary pressure and the consequent impact on economies and markets of any reduction in liquidity

* Whether the downtrend in labour’s share of income is likely to reverse

* The outlook for the US dollar and the emerging markets

The panellists will discuss what the market currently discounts and how their views differ from this consensus. They will give their views on the asset allocation and style, region and sector exposures that are likely to offer the best (and worst) combination of risk and reward in this environment. They will finish by suggesting their own possible surprises for 2019. These are outcomes which the market believes have no better than a one in four chance but which the panellists believe have a probability of 50% or more.

A lot can happen in a month, particularly if you were working in the investment management industry recently.

In this ETF Summit Webinar, we hear the opinion from thought leaders and industry insiders the increasing amount of investor money flooding into Fixed Income ETFs, and how the ETF Industry has been coping with the big news events that show no sign of abating - China, Brexit, and Trump.

You'll learn about:

- The selection criteria to consider when selecting Bond ETFs and other Fixed Income ETFs.

- Which ETFs have gathered the most assets since the start of the 2019

- Whether there is a consensus of opinion as to which categories of ETFs offer the best opportunities in the months ahead.

Boutique Investment Management firm Charteris bring forward one of their experienced financial professionals to discuss current topics affecting markets from a global macro perspective. We will look at the themes, issues and outline predictions in the commodity space for the coming year.